A limitation to continuous fermentation is the difficulty of maintaining high cell concentration in the fermenter. The use of immobilized cells circumvents this difficulty. Immobilization by adhesion to a surface (electrostatic or covalent), entrapment in polymeric matrices or retention by membranes has been successful for ethanol production (Godia et al., 1987). The applications of immobilized cells have made a significant advance in fuel ethanol production technology. Immobilized cells offer rapid fermentation rates with high productivity — that is, large fermenter volumes of mash put through per day, without risk of cell washout. In continuous fermentation, the direct immobilization of intact cells helps to retain cells during transfer of broth into collecting vessel. Moreover, the loss of intracellular enzyme activity can be kept to a minimum level by avoiding the removal of cells from downstream products (Najafpour, 1990). Immobilization of microbial cells for fermentation has been developed to eliminate inhibition caused by high concentration of substrate and product and also to enhance ethanol productivity and yield. Neelakantam (2004) demonstrated that a high yeast inoculation at the start of the sugarcane juice fermentation allows the yeast outgrow the contaminant bacteria and inhibit its growth and metabolism. Varies immobilization supports for variety of products have been reported such as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA, see Fig10), alginates (Kiran Sree, 2000; Corton et al., 2000), Apple pieces (Kourkoutas et al., 2006), orange peel (S. plessas, 2007), and delignified cellulosic residues (Kopsahelis, 2006; Bardi & Koutinas, 1994). We applied sugarcane pieces as yeast supports for alcohol production from sugarcane juice and molasses(Fig 11).The results(Liang et al.,2008) showed ethanol concentrations (about 77g/l or 89.76g/l in average value) , and ethanol productivities (about 62.76 g/l. d or 59.55g/l. d in average value)were high and stable, and residual sugar concentrations were low in all fermentations(0.3- 3.6g/l)with conversions ranging from 97.7-99.8%, showing efficiency(90.2-94.2%) and operational stability of the biocatalyst for ethanol fermentation. the results presented in this paper (see table 3), according to initial concentration of sugars in the must, showed that the

sugarcane supported biocatalyst was equally efficient to that described in the literature for ethanol fermentation. Sugarcane pieces were found suitable as support for yeast cell immobilization in fuel ethanol industry. The sugarcane immobilized biocatalysts showed high fermentation activity. The immobilized yeast would dominate in the fermentation broth due to its high populations and lower fermentation time, that in relation with low price of the support and its abundance in nature, reuse availability make this biocatalyst attractive in the ethanol production as well as in wine making and beer production. After a long period of using, spent immobilized supports can be used as protein-enriched( SCP production) animal feeds.